A team of researchers from the University of Cambridge has developed a solar-powered reactor that can convert carbon dioxide (CO2) captured from industrial processes or directly from the air into sustainable fuel. The reactor was tested with CO2 captured from real-world sources and was able to convert it into syngas, a key building block for sustainable liquid fuels. The researchers’ ultimate goal is to create a technology that can actively capture CO2 from industrial processes or directly from the air to create sustainable, net-zero carbon fuels without the need for environmentally destructive oil and gas extraction.
In testing, the reactor was able to take CO2 from real-world sources, including industrial exhaust and the air itself, convert and concentrate it, then turn it into sustainable fuel. The researchers successfully converted CO2 into syngas, an important building block of liquid fuels, while also transforming plastic bottles into glycolic acid that’s commonly used in cosmetic products. This groundbreaking technology holds great potential for combatting waste in a sustainable way, providing us with cleaner energy solutions.
Researchers have made significant strides in the development of sustainable, net-zero carbon fuels inspired by photosynthesis, using artificial leaves to convert CO2 and water into fuel using solar power. Challenges remain, however, in making the technology selective enough to convert highly diluted CO2 from the air.
“We’re not just interested in decarbonisation, but de-fossilisation — we need to completely eliminate fossil fuels in order to create a truly circular economy,” said Reisner. “In the medium term, this technology could help reduce carbon emissions by capturing them from industry and turning them into something useful, but ultimately, we need to cut fossil fuels out of the equation entirely and capture CO2 from the air.”
The researchers drew from carbon capture and storage (CCS), the process of capturing CO2 and storing it underground, for their inspiration.
“CCS is a technology that’s popular with the fossil fuel industry as a way to reduce carbon emissions while continuing oil and gas exploration,” said Reisner. “But if instead of carbon capture and storage, we had carbon capture and utilisation, we could make something useful from CO2 instead of burying it underground, with unknown long-term consequences, and eliminate the use of fossil fuels.”
The solar-driven technology converts CO2 and plastics into fuel and chemicals using only the power of the sun. By bubbling air through the system, CO2 gets trapped while other gases bubble out. The integrated system is divided into two compartments: captured CO2 is converted into fuel, while plastics become useful chemicals using sunlight.
“The plastic component is an important trick to this system,” said co-first author Dr Motiar Rahaman. “Capturing and using CO2 from the air makes the chemistry more difficult. But, if we add plastic waste to the system, the plastic donates electrons to the CO2. The plastic breaks down to glycolic acid, which is widely used in the cosmetics industry, and the CO2 is converted into syngas, which is a simple fuel.”
“This solar-powered system takes two harmful waste products — plastic and carbon emissions — and converts them into something truly useful,” said co-first author Dr Sayan Kar.
“Instead of storing CO2 underground, like in CCS, we can capture it from the air and make clean fuel from it,” said Rahaman. “This way, we can cut out the fossil fuel industry from the process of fuel production, which can hopefully help us avoid climate destruction.”
“The fact that we can effectively take CO2 from air and make something useful from it is special,” said Kar. “It’s satisfying to see that we can actually do it using only sunlight.”
Scientists are developing a bench-top device to showcase the benefits of coupling direct air capture with CO2 utilization. This paves a path to a zero-carbon future using efficient and practical technology.
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